E3 2010: Hype Yourself in EA Sports MMA

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You've never experienced online multiplayer quite like this before.

By Nate Ahearn

A few weeks ago I sat down at EA's Los Angeles studios to check out EA Sports MMA's online features, or at least one of them. I assumed I was sitting down to check out some sort of new ranking system or a demo of how experience points earned online would benefit your single-player character. Boy was I wrong. Instead, what I saw was one of the most forward-thinking online features I've ever seen in a sports game.

I'm sure EA Sports MMA will have the requisite quick match and ranked match features that we all expect, but the real bread and butter is the Live Broadcast mode. Basically this allows for players to compete for real-world prizes in-game and build up personas online. But how do you earn the right to compete in one of these Live Broadcasts? Well, there are a few ways. The first is obviously just being damn good at EA Sports MMA and ascending the leaderboards. But EA Sports also wants to incorporate active community members into the mix along with members with standout personalities. How can you show your personality in-game, you ask? Well, that's probably the coolest part of all of this.

Sick alternate costume, Fedor.

In order to generate a following online, players will be able to create their own hype videos. If selected to appear in a Live Broadcast, these videos are going to play pre-fight. I saw one video that a father filmed for his online character. The video featured his son talking massive amounts of smack to the opponent in various spots around the house. It was made all the cuter by the fact that his son was around four years old and the video contained plenty of bleeps to cover up supposed swear words. The point is that players can put whatever they want in these videos (no obscene content, of course) to bring out their MMA character and win over fans. All you need to do is film yourself being ridiculous, upload it to EA Sports' website and you're good to go.

What's even cooler is that, if you are lucky enough to be selected by EA Sports for one of these Live Broadcasts, (Dale Jackson, producer for EA, isn't saying how often the broadcasts will run, but said it could be every few days) you'll not only be able to tell people to tune in on Xbox Live or PlayStation Network to watch your fight, but you can also phone your Xbox-less grandmother and give her a URL to watch your bout on a PC. Players looking on will be treated to the same commentary that the two combatants hear and they'll even be able to switch to different camera angles during the broadcast. EA Sports will track the number of people watching each match and that will factor in to the popularity of each fighter.

Each Live Broadcast will have anywhere from one to eight fights per card with the title fight supposedly carrying some sort of real-world prize. There was talk of Monster energy drink being involved in the prize giving, but no firm announcement was made. Despite the promise of possibly getting a truckload of Monster energy drink delivered to my front door, I think the coolest feature is that I can tell my friend, who may or may not like MMA in the slightest, to watch my fight on either a PC or his game console. He might not like MMA, but he might get a kick out of watching me get arm barred into submission. It's a great way for non-MMA fans to get into the sport a bit.

Fighters will come from the world over to play in a Live Broadcast.

I also like the fact that you don't necessarily have to be good at EA Sports MMA to earn a spot on a Live Broadcast fight card. All you have to do is have a bit of a personality with an awesome hype video or be an active member in the EA Sports MMA community.

With Live Broadcasts in EA Sports MMA, EA is trying to turn regular gamers into professional virtual athletes of sorts. It's a great way to highlight both the people that are dedicated MMA diehards and those that are just outspoken on the forums. Here's hoping that EA Sports can put good use to the Live Broadcasts and offer real-world prizes that people actually care about, along with solid technology to ensure that the gameplay experience doesn't slow to a crawl when hundreds of onlookers tune in.

EA Sports MMA is scheduled to release later this year for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.